This is very well timed for me. I just acquired myself a convenient ancient laptop by installing Linux on a circa 2014 chrome book. It can chug when playing videos, but great for general use.
I love watching videos about plane crashes on my old tablet when I’m cooking or rinsing (non-native here, is that right for doing a dishwasher’s job by hand?).
I’ll join with Technology Connections in being that guy who says (in a friendly way, not condescending):
If you have to rinse your dishes ever then you’re using the wrong soap, have a reeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaally crappy dishwasher (like a multi decade old cheapo model that’s breaking), or are loading your washer wrong. I think TCs video showing literally cooked on cheese coming off of dishes is pretty good proof that no dish out there needs rinsing.
I used to think my dishwasher couldn’t handle most things without rinsing, then I realized one of my sprayers had been blocked up and i also switched to a powder soap and suddenly everything is clean as fuck without any other changes to my loading habits. This was on a model slightly cheaper than the one TC uses in his video, and was about 7 years old when I saw improvement.
This is not criticism or anything, but simply trying to spread awareness of a simple thing I know a lot of people are surprised by when I tell them. Many of us are wasting time and effort on rinsing shit that doesn’t need to be, free yourselves!
The first (and last) surface product I bought was the pro 3, and I still find uses for it today. I’m planning on making it a media hub for my workout machine when I get that set up. I need to clear some space before I can put that together.
I recently purchased an older gen (refurb) framework 13 and it sure is quick. A bit costly, but hopefully the last full laptop I’ll need to buy.
My desktop is an older (purchased used) Dell high end desktop system, which I dropped CPU/RAM/SSDs into and augmented with a Nvidia RTX card. Runs like a champ. Built in ~2016 or so… It was like 5 years old when I got my hands on it.
I still have my ~15 year old Alienware… I think the M15x, which was a pre-Dell acquisition laptop. From college. Which still works but probably needs some coaxing to get up and running again. That was the last “new” system I purchased. I learned my lesson then to not buy new.
I also have a collection of older servers and stuff and I run a homelab on dated enterprise equipment. It needs an upgrade as the main components are over 10 years old (except the drives), and it’s showing its age. Looking at getting a refurb/used Dell FX2s chassis because it’s more upgradeable than the alternatives and should save space and power.
The only warning I will give is that low end consumer systems are going to be garbage, whether they’re new or not. When buying a used prebuilt, I highly recommend finding a used business system.
In general, if you are looking for a system to play games with, building your own is the best option, if you have the money, buying from an SI is the next best (they basically do the same as a custom build, it’s just that they’re doing it instead of you), after that, you can get a gaming focused, used, prebuilt if you like (like an Alienware or something similarly gaming focused) and do some upgrades (GPU, disk, more RAM, etc) as appropriate, or buy a prebuilt office PC and add a good GPU.
The custom built after market is a nightmare of both good and bad deals; for someone who isn’t completely versed on hardware, I would say you either need to bring a friend who is, or just avoid it entirely.
With all used/refurbished systems, always set aside some money for a new primary drive or SSD, since the one that’s included is probably fairly worn out, and it’s not unusual to have it fail within a few years of getting the system.
The only new PC’s I would say you should consider, are from SI’s. Where it’s basically a custom/self built PC, but built by someone else. Only if you have the money and only if you can’t do it yourself for any reason. If you have any technical know how at all and can take an hour to look up PC building guides, then spend a few hours on pcpartpicker or similar to spec the system… Then just do it yourself. I won’t fault anyone for using an SI, if they simply don’t have the time to learn and do it themselves, or if they have a mobility issue… (among many other reasons). Buying a new prebuilt from a big name should probably be avoided where possible (names like Dell, Lenovo, Microsoft, HP, Asus, Acer, etc). Used are fine as long as you can get a deal and the system is part of the business line… For gaming, not a lot of business PCs are good for gaming. Some can be upgraded to be decent at it (usually by adding a consumer graphics card).
The difficult one is laptops. If you want a mobile system with graphics enough to play modern games at even modest settings, you’re going to have a lot of difficulty finding something in the used/refurb segments… Mainly because GPUs have such a significant performance difference between each generation. Any modern generation GPU in a laptop will command a very high price, and it goes downhill fast, especially considering that mobile GPUs are fairly poor for performance, even compared to the same generation of the same series of desktop card.
In those cases, I’d generally recommend a business system with a thunderbolt GPU dock, and just slap in a desktop GPU. It’s not as mobile, but you’re going to save a lot of time and heartache trying to find a good system that fits both your performance requirements and your wallet. An external GPU dock gives you the flexibility of using less expensive desktop cards with more power, and upgrading that card whenever it suits you.
Steam has been gradually going down the route of becoming a “pretty” interface instead of a fast one, and it’s kind of sad. Excessive use of dynamic svgs for home page animations, dynamic gradients that slow everything down, and probably some backend changes too, and all baked in with the base UI so it’s less responsive than it was before, even on decent hardware. Seems like it all started with Big Picture and the gradual migration of that design style into the main client.
I feel terrible when stuff I buy says it was made with love. Do I deserve the love of someone who never even met me? Do I deserve love at all? That’s why I prefer eating food made by unfeeling machines.
Yes, you deserve the love I put into food, regardless if it’s Foie Gras, Vegan Lasagne or Tater friggin’ Tots…and also regardless if I’m 100% there or just going through the motions as an unfeeling machine.
I don’t know anything about this Pizzacake person, but I don’t think this specific comic is any worse than the average newspaper gag strip, except they wouldn’t tackle a subject like this. It didn’t make me laugh, but I also wouldn’t call it awful. I’d definitely read this over literally any Dilbert strip ever.
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